'Ring?' she croaked once the concealment was accomplished.
'A sapphire enclosed with diamonds. Quite wonderful...' was all the man imparted as though still much in awe of it.
'And where are they now? The missing items?' Her attitude was far too brusque. But controlling her voice or her body seemed beyond her capability. She was quivering from head to foot. She could feel her frozen lips trembling even as the brittle words tumbled out. A million fantastic thoughts seemed to whirl in her head of why Sam was here and why he had stolen the deeds before she could. Was it possible that he had also taken a ring that sounded so very much like the one Connor had given her on their betrothal six years ago?
Was
Sam a thief? Had his prime target been the jewel and he had simply taken the document, too, because it was to hand?
How could she feel righteous? What depths had she sunk to in her obsessive need to get what she wanted, if not common thievery? Had Sam left the document behind,
she
would have attempted to smuggle it from the room.
Farcically, she instead found herself forced to appropriate his lordship's weapon.
Her answer came simply, wandering into her stormy thoughts to becalm them. Sam was not a thief...he was her guardian angel. Suddenly she knew, almost certainly, that he had done it for her...to protect her. Somehow he had discovered her plan and valiantly tried to save her from her own scheming.
At that moment an agitated maidservant burst in, drawing the attention of both the room's occupants. The girl's saucer-round eyes gawked at her superior before she allowed herself some sliding peeks at the beautiful stranger with him. 'Pardon me, Mr Walsh, but Mr Weekes says as the constable is arrived and that the magistrate is coming too, fast behind him.'
Joseph nodded at the girl and with a sketched curtsy she was gone in an excited rustle of black and white cloth.
Joseph held out a reassuring hand to Rachel. 'There! The authorities are even now taking charge. I can see how distraught you are, Miss Meredith. But all will be well, I promise. Lord Devane will soon be back to attend to the matter. Smith has been caught red-handed* and must be punished. The items you were asking about are quite safe. They are put securely by as evidence.'
He gave her a kindly look. 'I understand how anxious you must be to get home and check on Annie Smith and your own belongings. You need only say and I shall have one of the footmen immediately hail you a cab.'
Rachel's stiff lips stretched in an approximation of a smile but she felt simultaneous tears of forlorn frustration prick her eyelids. She had risked all, yet mean fate had allowed her nothing. All it handed back to her as a finale to her shambolic scheming was an opportunity to bolt for cover like a whipped dog. She could go and leave Sam stranded, alone, to face an inquisition. If she acted now, she might yet elude lies, if not deceit.
Soon Connor would be home. On learning of her presence here tonight, he would know just why her impromptu visit coincided with the attempted theft of the deeds to Windrush. He would know why she had cravenly scampered off. Would he hound her for aiding and abetting? See her in a magistrate's court tomorrow alongside Sam? Or would he simply despise the lowly trickster she'd become and let things lie for lack of hard proof? Perhaps knowing her amateurish antics had been so easily thwarted would be enough revenge for him.
Her eyes blinked rapidly, clearing away the teary film. A young man who hardly knew her had put himself in peril for her sake. She could not live with her conscience if she did not at least try to ease the burden on him. She had no idea how that might be achieved, but she knew she must speak to him at least, free him at best. 'I should like to see my employee, Samuel Smith, please, Joseph.' Ignoring Joseph's cautionary look, Rachel walked, head high, to the door of the study.
'You may leave us.'
The constable looked as though he might protest but a thick imperious finger flicked indicating the man remove himself. 'Go. I must confidentially question the accused. I shall call if I have need of your assistance.'
With a final peer over his shoulder, the beagle dragged his flat feet along the hallway to idle with a knot of servants who were still loitering, while Joseph Walsh was busy elsewhere, loath to yet relinquish such awesome diversion.
Sam Smith brashly cocked his head, then his chin dropped and he was gazing at his wrists and ankles, bound with rope in front of him. He shifted on the hard wooden chair he'd been forced down upon opposite the rose salon. Lamps were now lit and a beckoning mellow blush was tinting the space beyond that half-open door. 'Should I be honoured you've come in person to escort me to gaol?' Sam asked with hollow cheekiness.
'Indeed you should, my good man,' his worship, Arthur Goodwin, replied.
His voice sounded as silken as the official robes in which he swished about.
His head, thatched with mousy hair only at the sides, was free of the ribbed judicial wig and appeared a greasy dome beneath the flaring wall-sconces.
'You're keeping me from my supper, from my well-earned repose with my dear lady wife. But I'm not angry. Oh, no, no. Indeed, I own to being quite delighted that we meet under such...auspicious circumstances. Sweet fate has had a hand in this night's work,' he murmured contentedly as he walked away a little. He turned to amusedly study his cornered prey, savouring how best to' apply the torment he intended to inflict.
This youth had led him a merry dance in his pursuit of that angelic-faced wench. He'd been insulted, sneered at. A member of his majesty's judiciary, a man of some wealth and status condescended to notice this slum-scum, yet they had the brass neck to spurn his patronage! And he knew their motives: to drive up the price of the fragrant miss. Now the whelp would pay! So would that doe-eyed
demi-vierge
when he finally had her nailed beneath him... A thick finger wiped a beading of sweat from his bulbous top lip as he ruminated, on his favourite sport: roughly deflowering pubescent girls.
'I was unexpectedly kept late in sessions and thus was fortuitously at the court house when Weekes arrived with the news that one Samuel Smith had been taken red-handed, stealing from the Earl of Devane. Do you know what my first thought was on walking into this grand abode? I would forgo a month's worth of dinners and conjugal rights to see you thus: trussed and branded a thief and, I'll warrant, so very
...very
keen to bribe me to be lenient with you.'
Sam Smith raised his hate-filled eyes to the smirking pasty face thrust close to his. 'Go straight to hell, you evil bastard. I'll not ask any favours of you.'
Arthur Goodwin bared his grained teeth in a grin. 'Oh, I think you will.
Because it's up to me now whether
you
are going straight to hell. You're not so young or so stupid as to be unaware of what mire you are now steeped in.
But just in case you are stupid, let me enlighten you as to the details of the case I've just come from this evening.'
Sam contemptuously turned his head to stare at the gaggle of servants some way along the hallway. They gawped right back, tearing their eyes away only long enough to nod and whisper words at each other. He felt furious at himself for getting caught. He felt furious at himself for not having given sufficient consideration to the consequences of getting caught. He felt ashamed of himself because, for the first time in his life, since his ma had died, he'd put another woman before Annie. He'd been thinking only of Noreen when he got himself embroiled in this. Even now, he found himself thinking of Noreen. He wasn't man enough for her.
He'd failed her. He'd let Annie down too. This slimy beak was about to crow over just how badly he'd let his young sister down.
'This evening, just an hour since, I despatched a young man—about your age, I'd say—to Botany Bay. Now he's enjoying his supper of bread and water in custody. Tomorrow he'll be on his way to one of the prison hulks.
Have you heard of the hospitality they offer? I'll be pleased to educate you as to what you can expect on even the best of those overflowing sewers. Shall I acquaint you with that young man's crime?' He walked close to where Sam fidgeted on the chair and circled round him. A finger and thumb came out, fondling one of his ears before viciously twisting the cartilage. Arthur Goodwin bent his mean lips close to where his fingers savaged. 'First I would like to know something. How is that sweet little sister of yours?' He tightened his grip. 'Come, tell me how my lovely Annie does. I can't hear you...'
Just a small whimper bubbled from Sam's compressed lips as his torturer's fingernails nipped into his skin.
'That young clerk—soon to be enduring a living death whilst awaiting his time to sail away to a different underworld—embezzled a thousand pounds from his master during his time as his clerk.' Arthur Goodwin shot a look at where the exhibits of Sam's crime lay on a table. 'I'd say the sapphire alone is worth more than two thousand. The theft of valuable documents has yet to be added to the sum. How are
your
sea-legs? Or perhaps I might choose to have you dance the Newgate jig. What will tender Annie bargain with, do you think, to save your neck being stretched?'
Sam Smith ripped himself from the magistrate's grip and lurched to his feet, sending the man reeling back a few paces. His chair clattered on to its back.
Sam followed: forgetting that his feet were cuffed, he overbalanced. From his position, sprawled at the corrupt justice's feet, he spat up at him, 'She's safe from you. She's where you won't get your filthy paws on her.'
'Samuel? Are you hurt?'
Sam Smith and his worship, Arthur Goodwin, whipped around startled countenances as they heard that soft, urgent call.
Sam pushed up on to an elbow then wobbled his way to his feet. 'I'm well enough, m'm,' he said gruffly, unable to meet Rachel's eye, or that of Joseph Walsh as he hurried after her slender figure hurtling along the corridor.
'I wish to speak privately to my servant,' Rachel burst out breathlessly to Arthur Goodwin. She turned to Joseph, puffing up behind her. 'Unbind Samuel's feet, please, Joseph, so he might move more easily to the rose salon.'
'I don't think that's wise, Miss Meredith,' Joseph ventured as though talking to a peevish child. 'Come, I shall have one of the footmen hail you a cab. It is time, surely, you were safely away home. The magistrate will be giving this rogue a thorough scolding, to add to the one he received from me. You need not fret he will go hence without reprimand.'
Arthur Goodwin plumped out his chest beneath his robes, keen to keep in evidence his authority over the prisoner. 'Indeed, sir, you are correct. Now, it is time to remove the villain into proper custody. Watson!' he barked at the beagle, whilst running an assessing eye over Rachel. Not that she interested him in the way Annie Smith did. He supposed she was pretty enough; but too old and far too sure of herself to perk up the lecherous bully in him.
What kept his sly eyes trained on her was that he recalled seeing her before.
She'd been immodestly pert then too.
She'd had far too much to say for herself on the afternoon the hackney he'd hired had locked wheels with the dray Smith had been driving. In his opinion, what she'd needed then was a man to slap her down. Just as she did now. Perhaps Devane was the man applying for the job, he inwardly smirked. He recalled the way the Irishman had seemed fascinated by her. If they weren't well acquainted before that incident, they obviously were now.
The lady seemed quite at ease here, giving her orders...
But what might she be doing in his lordship's house, in his absence, and with apparently no chaperon present? And she had said that the youth was one of
her
servants? So the Smiths had left the Earl's employ...
Arthur Goodwin had a devious detective's mind. It raced to an unlikely conclusion, but one he nevertheless very much liked. Had she been distracting Joseph Walsh whilst her man was robbing the house? With a very thoughtful purse to his lips he strode over to examine the recovered booty lying on a table. 'Are you acquainted with a property known as Windrush, Miss Meredith?'
'Yes,' Rachel returned tartly before turning her attention to Joseph. 'Please free Samuel's feet or I shall do it myself.'
With a sigh, Joseph bent to untie the knots.
'This is most irregular! Just a moment, Miss Meredith!' Rachel heard the magistrate remonstrate as she ushered Samuel within the pretty pink room.
She turned in the doorway to bar his fat body with her willowy figure. 'I
will
have five minutes alone with my servant.' She closed the door in his ugly, sweating face.
Once within the room, Rachel looked soulfully at Sam. He avoided her gaze, making her despairingly throw back her head and blink hot-eyed at the ceiling. 'Did you mean to steal those deeds, Sam?' she burst out.
'Yes, m'm.'
'And the sapphire ring, too?'
'No!'
Sam looked directly at Rachel. 'I'd no inkling a ring was tied to the ribbon round the papers and that's the honest truth. It were pushed underneath it in the drawer. I just snatched up the scroll and ran...'
'Why?'
'Get out of there as fast as I could.'
Rachel gave a sobbing laugh. 'No. Why did you steal papers that are worthless to you?'
'They're not worthless to you.'
'You did it for me?'
'No, m'm,' Sam said quietly, incurably honest. 'For Noreen.'
'You stole the deeds to Windrush for Noreen?'
After a silent moment of inner turmoil, Sam burst out, 'Noreen overheard you telling your friend about Lord Devane wanting a mean revenge on you.